Lecturers at the Jefferson Educational Society

Eugene J. Dionne,

E.J. Dionne Jr. employs his passions for people and politics and his keen intellect to deliver reasoned analysis that is followed by a wide circle of policy-makers nationwide – on the left, right and center. In his columns as well as his appearances as a commentator for National Public Radio, ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” and NBC's "Meet the Press," Dionne demonstrates that he "knows the present with the keen sense of a beat reporter and the past with the perspective of a scholarly historian" (America Magazine, 2008). Dionne began his now twice-weekly op-ed column for The Washington Post in 1993. In 1996, it was syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group, and he now appears in more than 100 newspapers in the United States and abroad, including Erie’s Times-News. Before joining The Post in 1990 as a reporter covering national politics, he spent 14 years with The New York Times, reporting on state and local government, national politics, and from around the world, including stints in Paris, Rome and Beirut.

In selecting Dionne as its 1996 recipient of the annual Carey McWilliams Award to honor a major journalistic contribution to the understanding of politics, the American Political Science Association called Dionne "one of Washington's finest journalistic thinkers …. His tireless efforts uplift the public ... in a time that cries for reasoned debate, not more negative ads, rumor or simplistic sound bites." In 1997, he was named one of the 25 most influential Washington journalists by National Journal and among the capital city's top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian magazine.